Several States Stay Off Charter School Bandwagon

Boise, Idaho

In her small timber town in northern Idaho, Christina Williams enrolled her son in the closest public school because she had few other choices near her home.

But as she watched him struggle for years — many mornings prying him out of bed and forcing him to go to school — Williams sought an alternative to the traditional classroom. The single mother now drives about 140 miles roundtrip each day to her 12-year-old son's charter school in Sandpoint.

"It's killing my poor little car, but it is so worth the drive to me," Williams said in a telephone interview. "He was not getting...